Australian Sky & Telescope — January 01, 2018

24 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE January 2018

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Mars

acoupleofkilometresdeep,anditwouldbeaveryexpensive

mission to drill to those depths.”

If this is the case, then why not wait until society has

developed the technology to determine if there is or isn’t life

onMarsonceandforall?Afterall,partofthebeautyofthe

RedPlanetisthatitisaplanet-sizedtimecapsule.“OnEarth

everything has been metamorphosed by burial and plate

tectonics,”saysHorgan.“OnMarsmanyoftherocksonthe

surface are in the exact place they were laid down 4 billion

yearsago—they’resittingtherewaitingforustointerpret

them.” Why rush?

Perhaps the reason comes less from the head and more

fromtheheart.Wewanttoknowifwearenotaloneinthe

universe — and we want to know now. So forget waiting for

technological advances: To steal from Tennyson, it is better to

try and fail than never to try at all.

„BENJAMIN SKUSEis a science writer based in Bristol,

United Kingdom.

WHERE TO LAND?

œWhile the Emirates Mars Mission has no intention

oflanding and the Chinese Mars Mission’s landing

site remains a secret (with officials only revealing it

will touch down in the low latitudes of the northern

hemisphere), NASA and ESA teams are busy whittling

down their spacecrafts’ landing zones to a handful of

contenders.

NASA(landing ellipse 18 km × 14 km)

1. Gusev –Mars rover Spirit found that mineral springs
   once burbled up from the rocks of Columbia Hills,
   specifically uncovering evidence that past floods
   might have formed a shallow lake inside this crater.
   “The minerals that precipitate out of those hot waters
   can trap microbes and organics, and help preserve
   biosignatures,” says Horgan. “So astrobiologists are
   really excited about the chance to go back.”

5 2+3

TOPOGRAPHIC MAP: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

RED PLANET RESEARCH